Free will Argument against Divine Providence

[bennyboy]

Given experience itself is a form of awareness, defining it in experiential terms would give rise to circular reasoning. Besides, when talking about what constitutes awareness we are automatically required to give a functional definition.

No we aren't. A descriptive definition works, too-- to explain what it IS LIKE to experience. It just doesn't work for you, because such subjective language is too imprecise to take into a lab.

Read it again. I'm specifically addressing the issue of "how a physical system arrives at the actual experience of redness". The theory here is that the aspect of self-awareness by which we become aware of the internal workings of the brain is what we call experience. Simply put:
1. A physical system becomes 'aware of', i.e. processes external information as a result of which certain changes take place within it.
2. A physical system further processes this act of processing itself, due to which further changes take place within it.

If 1. occurs, we can regard the system as 'aware'. If both 1 and 2 occur we can regard it as experiencing something.

All systems "process" all other systems to some degree, since they are all linked by gravity, and by the exchange of photons. Anyway, who's to say a particular collection of particles is a "system," and another is just a bunch of particles?

We are in the realm of ideology here, not one of objective reality.

Once again, you are the only one begging the question here. You start with the assumption that experience is not and cannot be a form of data-processing and therefore, any data-processing physical system cannot be - by definition - capable of experience no matter how apparent its capacity for experience maybe. So, even if the Cyberboy 2000 says "This apple is red, round, smooth to touch and tastes sweet", you'd regard it simply as a machine processing visual, tactile and chemical data - not as an entity experiencing something.

The old "No, I'm not. You are!" defense. I'll be using that one liberally, as well.

I'm not begging the question-- I'm describing the world view that people generally have: that people have minds, and that machines do not. Now, it is possible that a machine CAN theoretically experience, just as I do. That's an exciting possibility, but I'm curious how you would confirm or disprove that possibility. I'm willing to extend the status of "sentient being" to people because I'm one, and I'm willing to assume that degree of similarity. But why would I extend it to a machine, regardless of how convincingly it mimics the behavior of actual humans?

My position, on the other hand, is falsifiable. I do assume that experience is a form of self-referential data-processing which means I would expect a physical system with human level of complexity and capacity for self-awareness to be capable of experience. Notice the use of the term "expect" - which means, I won't simply assume that it is capable of experience. But, if my assumption is correct then such an entity entity would be capable of experience - though specific to its physiological make-up and needs. I would expect it to find certain patterns as beautiful, certain scents as delightful and the taste of motor oil preferable to that of an apple. But, if it gives no such indications, then I'd have to accept that there is something more to experience than data-processing.

I wish we could see this happen in our lives. Do androids dream of electric sheep?

But let's say your Cyberboy 2000 takes in Beethoven's 5th, simulates the musculature of a "moved" human being, or possibly sheds a tear in response. Does this prove it's more than just an elaborate, but nevertheless unfeeling, machine? Should we give such machines rights? Should we allow them equal status in social programs, or allow them to govern themselves (or us)?

And why would you assume that it [the existence of experience] is neither provable nor falsifiable?

Because I have access to experience, and cannot prove it other than by insisting verbally that I have it. I cannot otherwise show that I actually experience, rather than seem to.